NEW DELHI/JAKARTA: Indonesia has bought 250,000 tonnes of rice from Indian suppliers at $483 per tonne on a delivered basis, an Indian trade source with direct knowledge of one of the deals and a rice trader in Indonesia said on Tuesday.
The deals, from three suppliers, follow talks earlier in November between Indonesia's state procurement agency Bulog and India's food ministry where government-to-government arrangements were also discussed.
Bulog could not immediately be contacted for confirmation.
Indonesia, the world's third-biggest rice consumer, has a shortfall of around 2.25 million tonnes per year to cover.
This year, one of its regular suppliers and the world's largest exporter, Thailand, has hiked prices and also been hit by severe flooding, triggering interest in other supplies.
The 10 percent broken rice from India is for delivery by the end of February 2012.
India, the world's second-biggest producer of rice after China, has just allowed exports of rice as bumper harvests have created massive stockpiles.
Bulog had issued a tender for the rice in which eight companies competed, the rice trader in Indonesia said. This trader said all eight would supply but the Indian trade source said there were just three suppliers.
Indonesia had wanted 250,000 tonnes of rice for prompt delivery and India's government had said it was willing to sell 500,000 tonnes of rice from its warehouses but wanted its southeast Asian trading partner to cut its export tax on crude palm oil, which has threatened the domestic refining industry.
Indonesia is the world's largest producer of palm oil and recently changed the structure of its export taxes to favour refined product in an attempt to boost its own industry.
India is the world's largest importer of vegetable oils and Indonesia's biggest customer for palm oil.
Its imports in the year ending Oct. 31, 2011 were 8.7 million tonnes in total, down 5.4 percent from the previous year and Indonesia's export tax change hit palm oil imports in October, latest figures released on Tuesday showed.
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